05-03-2006, 02:01 AM
Iâve been thinking about the expansion and itâs relation to existing content. I see a few different options for Blizzard, none very attractive:
- design the expansion for raid gear and provide it easily to all players. This will trivialise the effort that raid guilds have put into mastering the current raid instances.
- design the expansion for raid gear but donât add new ways to obtain it. This will frustrate players without access to that equipment.
- design the expansion for non-raid gear. This will much of the content pointless for current raiders.
Assuming that what Blue has said so far isnât just the usual marketing smokescreen my guess is that Blizzard is going with the latter option. Ten more levels of gear will bring the non-raid cap to ilvl 73 (though perhaps of epic quality); raid gear is already well beyond that and Naxx will raise it further. So current raiders will blow through instances designed to be interesting fights for people in Tier 0 and hit 70 without having had a single item upgrade.
If I was running the show Iâd try for some sort of compromise between these options - provide faster than normal item progression in the expansion, with the first instances challenging but doable when in Scholo gear and the later ones challenging but doable in Naxx or their own gear. This would also avoid new 70âs needing to run â40 man Sunken Templeâ for months before reaching entry level expansion raid gear and allow future encounters to be designed around a single expected gear standard. Itâs not perfect - those first few instances will have disproportionate rewards while still being useless to raiders - but itâs better in my opinion than the purer options and Iâll be pleasantly surprised if this approach is actually taken.
What would you do and what do you think Blizzard is likely to do?
- design the expansion for raid gear and provide it easily to all players. This will trivialise the effort that raid guilds have put into mastering the current raid instances.
- design the expansion for raid gear but donât add new ways to obtain it. This will frustrate players without access to that equipment.
- design the expansion for non-raid gear. This will much of the content pointless for current raiders.
Assuming that what Blue has said so far isnât just the usual marketing smokescreen my guess is that Blizzard is going with the latter option. Ten more levels of gear will bring the non-raid cap to ilvl 73 (though perhaps of epic quality); raid gear is already well beyond that and Naxx will raise it further. So current raiders will blow through instances designed to be interesting fights for people in Tier 0 and hit 70 without having had a single item upgrade.
If I was running the show Iâd try for some sort of compromise between these options - provide faster than normal item progression in the expansion, with the first instances challenging but doable when in Scholo gear and the later ones challenging but doable in Naxx or their own gear. This would also avoid new 70âs needing to run â40 man Sunken Templeâ for months before reaching entry level expansion raid gear and allow future encounters to be designed around a single expected gear standard. Itâs not perfect - those first few instances will have disproportionate rewards while still being useless to raiders - but itâs better in my opinion than the purer options and Iâll be pleasantly surprised if this approach is actually taken.
What would you do and what do you think Blizzard is likely to do?